Poverty forecast

In June 2010 the European Union adopted its first anti-poverty target and radically changed its poverty measurement methodology. These changes have significant implications for the Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United Kingdom project, which are considered in this paper.

This paper discusses indicators relating to Domain 4 (‘Cultural Resources’) and Domain 7 (‘Cultural Participation’) of the revised Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix (BSEM) for use in the current Poverty and Social Exclusion survey. In the BSEM, education is treated as a resource as well as an aspect of cultural participation. Questions in the PSE survey therefore need to cover both the educational resources (human capital) of the adults in the survey, i.e. their educational background, and the educational resources currently received by children.

This paper presents indicators relating to public and private services, focusing particularly on services relating to health, services for specific groups such as elderly, disabled and young people and public transport. Although many such services are ostensibly ‘universal’, both the quality and the quantity of services are typically lower in poor areas, and families in poverty may face additional barriers when accessing services. This paper argues that there is a need for some innovation in the public and private service questions on the PSE survey due to the changing nature of public service provision.

This paper discusses both poverty and social exclusion as they have been configured, measured and ‘packaged’ in EU policy discourse and practice, and looks at both the content of policy and developments in relation to measurement and monitoring. It finds that the EU has been quietly redefining the measurement of poverty and putting a substance on the more neophyte ‘social exclusion’ as a ‘problem’ for social policy.

This paper provides a review of various measures pertaining to older people used in the 1999 Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) survey and offers suggestions for improvement. Six measurement areas were identified: deprivation; social capital; limitations in activities of daily living; receipt of informal care; receipt of health and social services; and provision of unpaid care.

Nearly 11 million people were at risk of poverty in the UK in 2010 – higher than the EU average – according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The ONS compared the UK at-risk-of-poverty rate with that in other EU countries over the period 2005–2010, using data from European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. The EU ‘at-risk-of-poverty’ rate is the proportion of people with an equivalised disposable income (after social transfers) below 60 per cent of the national median.

Researchers in Antwerp have examined the ‘missing links’ between employment policy and inclusion policy in the European Union. They point to the continuing need for a complementary approach to social transfers and labour market inclusion.

Although overall at-risk-of-poverty rates in the EU showed disappointingly little improvement during the economic upswing (2004–2008), this coincided with a convergence between national rates among people aged between 20 and 59. The researchers suggest four factors were at work:

A think-tank inquiry has been launched into alternative solutions to reduce in-work poverty.

The Smith Institute inquiry builds on an earlier project, which concluded that the most progress in tackling in-work poverty was made in the period of post-war consensus (1945–1979). This period combined:

The watchdog for children’s rights in Wales has said it is unlikely child poverty will be eradicated in the country by the official 2020 target.

Keith Towler, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, told a BBC television programme he welcomes the Welsh Government’s aspirations but he called for more honesty from politicians. He said: ‘I think that if they continue to say it – eradicating child poverty by 2020 – they will just cheese people off.’

Towler also questioned whether politicians really understand what people living in poverty are going through.

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PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.